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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Trick-or-Treating with IU Basketball: Haunted Hoops!

It's another Halloween tradition! Every year IU Basketball holds a free Halloween event for families, with a basketball scrimmage, games, crafts, trick-or-treating, and a costume parade. Although both Will and Syd worked hard on their respective costumes (witch and cat) for the Big Day, I did manage to convince one of them to wear the IU cheerleading dress that I scored at Goodwill a few years ago just to this one event:

The cat insisted on remaining a cat:

Thank goodness the IU campus is so nice for frolicking--lets some of us get all that sugar energy out!

That makes for *slightly* fewer wiggles and whines during the scrimmage:

But after the scrimmage, it's time for candy! And a parade! And candy! And a photo with the IU basketball team! Check out who the girls got to sit next to during the group photo:

Coach Crean is a big-time local celebrity, so even Syd, who was unimpressed enough with the random man sitting next to her for the photo that when he said, "Thanks for sitting next to me!" nicely to her afterwards she stared at him blankly (obviously, we have gone over and over and OVER appropriate responses to kind small talk, sigh), became star-struck as soon as we'd walked away and a few people said to her, "Wow! You sat next to Coach Crean!". She kept wanting to tell people that she'd sat with this famous person, but she kept forgetting the name of that famous person, so she'd start off, "Guess what? I sat next to..." and then look at us for help.

Since the girls also participated in another Halloween event at the IU dorms, that makes TWO trick-or-treating events that they've done pre-Halloween, and I also could have taken them trick-or-treating at the mall, any of our several state parks, one of our local museums, and most of several retirement homes around town. Mind you, I love the fact that our community is so community-minded that it eagerly holds these activities for children, but I would love it even more if they spread it out a bit, you know? I don't even care about the sugar rush, because my girls don't have allergies and I let them eat it all and then it's gone, but we hate being over-scheduled and/or missing fun stuff, and our weekend was INSANE and we still missed a ton of stuff that the girls would have loved. We missed the Day of the Dead event at the Mathers Museum! We missed decorating mini pumpkins at Lake Monroe! Wouldn't it be fun if some place had a Thanksgiving event, and some other place had a Valentine's Day event, and some other place had an Independence Day event, etc.?

We used to give out pencils and stickers and other non-food things (and I think we might have some leftovers of those for this year...), but the girls really wanted to give out candy this year, so I caved after years of being staunchly non-candy, sigh. If I do have leftovers that I can find, I might offer a choice of options in a large bowl, so a kid who knows she has allergies can inconspicuously grab a pencil or some stickers.

My Fair Play Policy

You have my permission to use one photo and one text quote of up to two sentences in your own blog post, as long as you:

1) credit my photo and my text quote as belonging to me, and link back to my post that contains it.

2) do not use a photo that contains my child's face without emailing me for permission at jufinn at indiana dot edu. Please include a link to your blog so I can give it a lookover, and please allow up to two days for my response.

Occasionally, I may post a photo of a child who is not my own. You do not have my permission to re-post any photo that contains an image of a child not my own, whether or not the child's face can be seen.

Occasionally, I may post a photo of my child not completely dressed. You do not have my permission to re-post any photo that contains an image of my child when she is not completely dressed.